The Bruise_Black Sky (16 page)

“You’re going to…what? Patrol? In the snow? In the dark? On your own?”

“Yes! Fucking hell, Ben!” He screwed up the piece of paper and threw it at Ben, not viciously, but clearly out of sheer frustration. “He could have had a sniper rifle!
I
could have hit you at that range! I could have had
that
news instead of seeing this. God doesn’t send us two warnings to be cautious, Ben.
Therefore let us not sleep as others do, but let us watch and be sober.
You should know this!”

Ben came over to Nikolas’s chair. He perched on the arm and then very cautiously wrapped Nikolas in his embrace, propping his chin on the golden hair. He smelt very odd.

All day, the crew had been whispering about the terrifying, gaunt, scarred man with a messianic fervour who appeared to be stalking Ben more than protecting him. He had thought they were all entirely missing the point—he’d just seen Nik amusing himself yet again with his plans and schemes. He now understood that the crew had been closer to the truth.

“Nik?” He felt a small jerk. Nikolas had drifted off in that slight moment of respite. Ben tightened his hold. “How did you think I would take this…you coming here and telling me what to do when I specifically—?”

“I don’t care what you say or think, Ben. I know you’ll fight me every step—”

“Hey, hush. If I promise that I will do everything you say, the minute you say it, that I will let you make every decision, no matter how annoying you become, will you sleep and eat for a few days first? That’s our bargain. You can’t protect me like this. You’ll make a mistake. What would you do if something happened to me because you made a mistake?”

Nikolas rested back into Ben’s hold, tension slipping out of his body little bit by little bit. “I would die.”

It might have sounded theatrical in other circumstances, but not then. It was a truth born of exhaustion and stress, but no less genuine for that. Ben began to stroke Nikolas’s face, his fingers combing through the heavy beard. “Then, please—sleep, eat, sleep, and eat again. Two days downtime, Nik. Just two days, and then I’ll do anything you say.” He continued grazing his fingers through the grey tangle. There was no answer.

Nikolas was asleep.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Nikolas eased his eyes open on the third day of his arrival in New Zealand and saw that it was snowing, and for one moment wondered if they’d had a freak summer snowstorm. Then he remembered and woke fully.

He’d followed through on his agreement with Ben, and since passing out on him in the armchair three days ago, he’d done nothing but eat and sleep—neither of which he’d done for more than a week before arriving—he just hadn’t had time.

He had decided to give himself a respite from planning too, possibly for the rest of his life. Although it was his second favourite activity, even he had been taxed by the organising it had taken to get him to where he was now.

§§§

Kate had been hysterical when she’d sent him the photos.

He’d allowed her a few moments show of concern for Ben, although Ben’s name had not been mentioned between them since the incident six months previous.

She’d attached the threat to an email, warned him about its contents, but even so, he had clicked on the attachment and seen the death of Benjamin Rider-Mikkelsen played out in front of him with a horror no preparation could alleviate. He didn’t recall all of the following few days—it had been a blur of travel and strange hotel rooms in which he hadn’t slept, but paced, thinking. Why didn’t he just get on a plane and protect Ben simply by being there, why the charade?

Because how would they explain that to anyone? This is Nikolas. He’s…he’s…There was only one answer to that, to justify why anyone would fly halfway around the world to be with someone, one man with another man, and that explanation wasn’t wanted, wasn’t
allowed
…

So, he’d contacted the personal security firm Peter Cameron was using, flown to LA, and attended an interview under a hastily organised new identity. Kate had been on the east coast and couldn’t meet with him, but she’d sent the forged ID. Yuri Bronislav.

The interview hadn’t gone well at first. No, he had no qualifications. No, he had no experience as a bodyguard other than being a soldier. He’d sensed his plan failing. He was exhausted already and didn’t even know what day it was. He was desperate. Finally, he’d risen from his chair and contemplated the three people interviewing him. He could hear, “Thank you, we’ll be in touch,” just about to issue from their lips. He ripped open the door and eyed the other candidates waiting quietly in their shiny suits in the outer room. Six young men—much younger than he felt. They looked fit, ready for action, slightly glamorous, as if they were being hired to play bodyguards, rather than actually be bodyguards. He guessed it was the LA disease.

He turned, chose the young woman out of the three HR people who’d been questioning him, and strode up to her, seizing her arm. “Come.”

“What—?”

He pointed at the six, now slightly uneasy, men. “Which one are you going to choose to save your life? Now! Choose!” He moved behind her, his arm across her throat. He felt her swallow against the muscle in his forearm. She pointed. She needn’t have worried—all six rose at once. Perhaps they thought it was part of their interview—audition…They took their roles seriously and did their best. Six on one. It should have been easy, but they were facing the man who thought Ben Rider-Mikkelsen was about to die, so they really hadn’t stood a chance.

When he was done, she had told her colleagues to hire him. When they demurred, she kicked one of the unconscious young men in the thigh. “
You
can have this pile of shit. I want
him
.”

He got the job.

Then he’d flown back to England, finished arrangements with the house, the dog, the horses, all the time his desperation to be with Ben burning within him, and then he’d boarded the plane at Heathrow, in jeans and the only clean shirt he could find, a few things stuffed into an old army duffle—and discovered he’d been booked into economy.

He’d never even walked through cattle class. He’d sat in the back of an Antonov An-22, strapped sidewards, full kit, ready to deploy, sixteen hours. This was worse. These seventeen and a half inch wide seats weren’t meant for men six foot four, even one who hadn’t eaten for a week. He had a window seat, which was something, no one yet next to him or in the aisle seat. That was good. He monitored this situation as the plane began to fill, checking his watch, planning. A man appeared in the aisle, coming towards him, boarding pass in his hand, glancing up at the row designations.

Nikolas closed his eyes and prayed to a god that had been punishing him since he was ten. Nope, he was apparently still angry. The three-hundred-pound man’s seat was in the middle of the row of three. Next to Nikolas. He had the grace to give Nikolas a slightly embarrassed smile as he tried to lift his cabin bag up into the overhead locker. He was sweating badly. He managed to squeeze in only by the expedient of lifting the armrests on either side of his seat. Fortunately for Nikolas, the man could occupy the empty seat in the aisle as well—until the man’s wife arrived. She needed
all
her seat. That was fairly obvious.

Nikolas twisted away, his back forced against the opposite armrest, and everything eased in his direction and filled the spaces, rolling and settling. None of them could get their trays down, not that Nikolas intended to eat anyway. It would have been difficult with his knees under his chin. It didn’t put his companions off their meals, however.

Although Nikolas didn’t intend to eat or sleep, even he occasionally had to piss. He never made a big deal about it, and Ben once accused him of not having bodily functions at all, but he did. Five hours into the flight, and they were beginning to sit up and demand attention. Six hours, and he was contemplating having to literally climb over the seats. The husband and wife physically could not get up to let him pass, so what else could he do? Seven hours, and he did, apologising to the startled family in front, but going forward over their seatbacks, swinging past their children and out into the aisle.

He had just determined to spend the rest of the flight walking around when they hit turbulence, the seatbelt signs came on, service was suspended…and everyone had to return to their seats.

On the flight from Changi, however, he missed his previous companions.

At first, he’d welcomed the mother and young daughter who’d sat next to him. He was in the aisle this time at the end of a middle row of seven. When no one was passing, he got to stick his enormously long legs out into the blessed space. The mother gave him a very swift assessment, saw he’d probably need reanimating before he could molest her daughter, so she allowed the tiny scrap to sit between them, thus giving them both some much needed additional room. The girl was about six, he reckoned, and a delightful companion (silent, watching movies)—until they’d hit some turbulence.

Nikolas was pretty good about vomit. He’d seen a lot of it in his time, often from Ben, and it never put him off Ben for long. However, he’d never had to live through the scene from The Exorcist that followed the rough air and a severe dropping of the plane. The girl tried to warn her mother, who was asleep, and then, in the absence of finding anything better to catch her sick, used Nikolas. She turned and spewed a vast stomach full into his lap.

When they arrived in Christchurch, the snowplough was broken.

They diverted to Auckland. Everyone missed onward connections. Nikolas had to wait six hours until he could get a flight to Dunedin.

Dunedin had been too foggy to approach, so they’d had to turn back and land at Christchurch, which was now clear of snow.

They had to wait another seven hours for Dunedin to clear.

They were offered free tickets to the Antarctic centre, which was only a short walk across the car park. Would he like one? (Why was everyone standing so far away from him?) He took a look outside the window at the snowstorm and assumed they were joking, so declined.

He finally arrived at Dunedin International Airport, carrying his duffle across a blizzard-swept runway.

A man was holding a sign that said: Bronislavic. It was close enough. He got in the bus, and within ten minutes had been asked where he came from, what he did and how much land he had.

He pretended he didn’t speak English.

They’d driven then into Dunedin to pick up the other men who’d managed to arrive before the fog had hit and who had, consequently, been holed up in a hotel, waiting for this final straggler.

For one moment, as they’d crested the hill with the favela-like panorama of Dunedin ahead of them, Nikolas thought they’d gone a little over the top with the post-apocalyptic set. Then he remembered with a frown that they didn’t film
After the Wars
in Dunedin. That was in Louisiana.

He assumed there was another dystopian movie being shot.

They collected the other three bodyguards, who Nikolas was relieved to discover he had not last seen unconscious on a floor in LA. They were all ex-army. Another good sign.

Five hours later, their driver informed them they were entering Paradise.

Nikolas definitely was because he could see Ben Rider-Mikkelsen, a head taller than everyone else around him, too beautiful to be real.

And alive.

That was the most important thing.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

By lunchtime on the third day of his arrival on set, when he was fully recovered, washed, shaved, and immaculate as usual, Nikolas put them in lockdown. Which wasn’t as dramatic as it sounded, as there was only one road into Paradise and it ended there. Beyond Paradise was the Antarctic, with some exceptionally cold ocean in between. Anyone who came to this tiny settlement had to come in on the one road. Now, no one came through without ID, even the residents. They didn’t seem to mind, because Nikolas was using them to beef up his force and was paying them well.

They all had guns and vicious-looking pig dogs.

He’d achieved his aim of getting onto the set and into the crew without his relationship with Ben being known or suspected. To do that, he’d had to keep to his assumed identity of a slightly down-at-heel ex-soldier who needed the job.

Now, however, he was freer to use his own resources on the side to bump up the level of security the company was apparently willing to provide.

After lunch that day, he told Ben he would be away for the afternoon.

Ben, naturally, wanted to know where he was going, and Nikolas admitted that he was taking a helicopter across to the mountains on the other side of the lake—that he wanted to find the place the photographer had lain watching Ben and see what he could discover.

Ben pondered this for a moment.

Nikolas saw the cogs slowly turning, could almost read Ben’s thoughts. He could stay there and be tweaked and prodded and stand around in the snow pretending to be someone else, or he could go on a helicopter flight into the mountains.

Nikolas had a passenger on his trip. He’d hoped he might.

They didn’t tell anyone except Ben’s assistant, so there wouldn’t be outright panic when Ben was discovered missing. They had no intention of him being refused permission to go. As Ben pointed out, the safest place for him to be was with his bodyguard.

Nikolas felt Ben’s tension, his distraction, and suspected he had plans they get a little closer than body
guarding
entailed. It had been over two weeks, after all.

They were picked up on the beach just outside Paradise and flown straight across the lake to the far shore.

It occurred to Nikolas, as he watched the chopper skimming away over the unnaturally clear water, that if it didn’t come back for them, they were entirely stuffed. They had no survival gear with them and were effectively now out of reach of civilization, although they could see Paradise just across the lake. It was a sobering thought. He checked his phone. No signal. There was a surprise. There was no reception in Paradise either. Nikolas had brought a sniper scope with him and the pictures of Ben taken from this side of the lake, and together they made their way up from the pebbled beach to a small plateau above them.